


Breaking the Wheel

by Liminal Minds (LiminalMinds)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Blood Magic, Covens, Death, F/F, F/M, Gratuitous Violence, Kinda, Multi, Not-really-smut, Political Coup, Rebellion, Violence, but like literally mistress of death, coven orgy, dead Ron sorry, death as entity, hints towards non con etc, if that entity is hermione lol, lots of blood mention, magic as entity, mod!hermione, oneshot that may expand into a full fic??? i have lots of ideas just dk what direction to go in
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:40:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28661130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiminalMinds/pseuds/Liminal%20Minds
Summary: It took Six Months, three days, seven hours and twelve minutes to bring the (formerly known as Wizarding Britain) to its knees.If somebody had told Pansy Parkinson six months ago that she’d have helped bring the world to its knees, she would have laughed.If somebody had told her who she’d be with, she’d have hexed them....
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Multi
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	Breaking the Wheel

It took Six Months, three days, seven hours and twelve minutes to bring the (formerly known as Wizarding Britain) to its knees.

In the wreckage of the world, they stood there; hair crackling, wands at the ready, knees steady.

Pansy turned to her right to look at Luna, who’s pale curls fell like snow against her ochre skin, stark and gleaming even though the ends were caked in ash and looked more like slush than snow, and smiled tremulously. Luna beamed back, sending her a cheeky wink, and Pansy couldn’t help but giggle.

The coup itself had not been clean, but still cleaner than Pansy thought it would go.

Perhaps decimation wasn’t so messy as total annihilation, but still, it was _dusty_ and bloody and violent.

If somebody had told Pansy Parkinson six months ago that she’d have helped bring the world to its knees, she would have _laughed._

If somebody had told her who she’d be with, she’d have hexed them.

Luna Lovegood, she discovered, was not as airy and innocent as she seemed. Luna possessed a sweet nature, but that did not mean she was delicate. (The way she slit Ron’s throat four months ago with merely a soft frown of displeasure before moving forward was proof enough of that. The way she came back to strip his body of hairs, blood, bone, and various other parts for her experiments like he was just a newt in a potion confirmed it.) When she took over her father’s paper after his age left him infirm, she reported Ron’s mysterious disappearance with the concern only a true and dear friend could do so. She reported the discovery of his body two weeks later with a heartbreaking first page, that caused even Pansy to shed a tear. She was the experimenter.  
  


Lavender Brown was not a loose-lipped, shallow gossip like she believed. She had been outcast by society for her tussle with Greyback, even though she was not afflicted herself. (The fact that Bill Weasley got to keep his job, his standing, his _family_ -) No, Lavender waged war differently; she allowed society to see her as the loose woman they always thought her as, but her lips remained sealed tight even as she wove her webs, created connections, and stole secrets. With a swish of her hips she coaxed even the coldest patron to talk. She was a dab hand with a memory charm. She played the game, but the other players never seemed to realise that it was _her_ game they were playing, all along. She always, _always_ won. She was their spider, their seducer.   
  


Padma, quiet and closed off in her school years, was deadly ice in human form. She was wicked smart, a powerhouse of magic all tightly controlled. She spent her school years in the library, learning secret, forbidden things. And she put them to use with deadly force. When Parvati was attacked and killed in Diagon Alley, Padma locked herself away for seven days, twelve hours and thirty four minutes. A minute later, the killer’s head lay, cleanly severed, on the steps of Gringotts, where Parvati’s blood still stained the stone. Padma had been spotted in the Ministry at the time, and could never be connected to the beheading, even though Pansy had _seen_ it happen in Padma’s memories. She still couldn’t work that one out. Cold, ruthless and clinical. Everything had a purpose, including killing. It was not random or unjust. 

Padma was the executioner for those that would not otherwise face the justice that was so deserved.

Susan Bones was a political darling. Beautiful, Pureblooded, and _Hufflepuff._ Hufflepuffs were harmless. Hufflepuffs were hard-workers. Hufflepuffs were honest and wouldn’t shake the status quo. Coming from the Bones family only added to that myth. Susan was uplifted through the ranks of the Ministry with a speed that _screamed_ nepotism, and as she took over her deceased Aunt’s position she smiled through it all; shaking hands, kissing babies, the whole shebang. And kept her relationship with Cho Chang under-wraps. The pricks in the Wizengamot didn’t even notice the string of disappearing husbands as one ring got exchanged for another; how those who had private meetings with her often died soon after; how, one-by-one, old blood was being taken out. They couldn’t connect it to Susan at all. Why would they? She wasn’t a killer; she was Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. 

No, Susan was not a killer. She was the judge. 

Cho Chang, Hogwarts’ sweetheart, was a wildcard. Pansy had often regarded Cho Chang as an over-emotional jock. And in some ways she was right. International Quidditch Star, Cho lived for flying, cried and laughed and loved passionately, and had a distinct lack of bitterness rather unlike the rest of them. But that’s not to say that Cho was to be discounted; not at all. She used her fame to bring attention to the right political movements, used the support of thousands of devoted fans and sponsors to get the right hands exchanging money, the right votes being counted, the right soldier’s for the cause...the right people killed. She had a keen sense of disseminating truth from fiction; from the guilty and the innocent. She never begrudged Susan her temporary romances to keep the Daily Prophet off their tail; rather, she would handpick her love’s paramours for their usefulness, their information...she was the witness and the plaintiff and the jury all rolled into one. 

And to unleash her was to unleash _fire_ and blood and ash. (And yes, Pansy had too many times walked in on the pair kissing, covered in blood and fire rolling over their skin. Frankly, it happened often enough that Pansy thought about getting a bell so they’d know she was near.)

Pansy didn’t discount herself either. Each of her fellow witches had joined the cause, but it had been _her_ who started it. She had been the one almost sold like a broodmare, and she had decided enough was enough. She ran in the Pureblood circles that were closed to Susan; namely, the darker circles. Wizards that had freely hunted Muggles and Muggleborn; that abused their own and raised their daughters for breeding. She worked those circles under the guise of engagement, and she worked them _good._ She was poised and aloof and demure, even when she wanted to fucking scream and rip their throats out with her teeth. She learnt who to send to Lavender; who to send to the Ministry for their own Judgement days, who’s libraries had important collections and who had ties with the ICW. She had been married five times by the time the coup was over, the mysterious deaths discounted by nature of Pansy’s breeding and the collective belief that she was a pretty useless witch. If Lavender was a spider weaving webs, then Pansy was a Praying Mantis; dispatching of both husband and political enemies when they were no longer useful with a smile on her damn face. She was a fucking revolutionary, and proud of it.

The last member of their coven (before it was really a coven) was Hermione Granger. And, surprisingly, she had been the last one to be convinced. Mostly because she was the last one to be found. 

They had been five weeks, four days and sixteen hours into their little revolt-rebellion-whatever when they’d finally managed to find Granger, who at last returned one of Luna’s owls and invited the group (something they hadn’t disclosed) to an unmarked location, a simple red ribbon falling on the floor. They’d taken hold of it and promptly landed in front of a large, stone castle; overgrown with ivy and thorns, the tallest tower disappearing into the sky and barely visible through dense fog before their old classmate’s voice rang out crystal clear and a path of bobbing blue lights suddenly formed. 

Pansy wasn’t sure how much of Granger was human, and how much of her was now pure magic. She roiled with it, crackled with it even as she greeted them into her home (which looked much more opulent and much less run down inside) with hugs and smiles, and it took several minutes before Luna pointed out that Hermione was walking on air rather than the ground. It took a few minutes more for anybody to speak. Hermione had disappeared after the war; it turned out that she was in Australia, though she couldn’t repair her parent’s memories and turned to travelling the world learning forbidden and forgotten magic, learning the very essence of magic itself. She had become more than human a long time ago. Long into the night, Pansy couldn’t keep it in any longer and asked _what the fuck, Granger._ Cause, well, the fact that Hermione was floating everywhere and conjuring food out of thin air and was covered in glowing, moving tattoos was not in character for the Muggleborn she’d remembered.

Luna asked if forming a coven meant that an orgy was involved, and there had been a sudden flood of heat pooling in between Pansy’s legs. Hermione’s tinkling laugh and a claim of “only if you’re up for it” sealed the deal for all of them...when they lay sweaty and bloody and sated, connected to each other’s magic and souls irrevocably intertwined, Pansy had found a soft moment of peace in the maelstrom of what was to come. 

And that’s when they were introduced to Death. Or, as Hermione lovingly called her, _Dearest._

Hermione was their last piece. Heroine, brightest witch, and now it seems, consort of death, would be their Queen. The Muggleborn on the side of the Light, though she’d not been seen in the Wizarding World for years, her actions still held weight, her image untainted despite the efforts of Rita Skeeter. And her sheer power was unmatched.

Which suited the rest of them just fine. They didn’t want to _rule_ so much as they wanted to burn the current world down. 

And in the ashes, they would rebuild it. Together.

Their coup was far from pure. Far from bloodless. Far from forgiving. But Hermione played her role perfectly; she was the balm for the wounded, the peacemaker for the volatile, the bridge between the rebels and the institution. For why would Hermione Granger, golden girl and Gryffindor’s Princess ever side with something evil? 

Hermione glided in amongst the dead like an angel; the saviour her dear (departed) Harry could never truly be; collecting the souls of the dead even as she soothed the fighters and brought them under her control. 

Seeing her already ruling, a true natural queen, caused Pansy’s lips to curl up. Her hands reached out; one to Luna, one to Lavender, and she could feel the connection of everybody’s hands connected, their magic joining and reaching out for Hermione, to rub their magic against hers. Pansy’s heart thrummed as Hermione looked back over them adoringly, waving them over to help tend the wounded, and Pansy’s heart filled with hope.


End file.
